


Understanding

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:38:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9331919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: AU after episode six in which Charlie and Matteusz talk about what happened and come to an understanding.





	

Charlie and Matteusz walked home hand in hand, but in silence. They hadn't been sure what they could do about Quill, but Charlie couldn't bring himself to care at the moment. He was sure the headmistress would sort it out for them. He hoped she wouldn't come back to the house, though he doubted she would. She hated that place, except for the coffee machine and her small pile of teenage dystopian literature. He didn't know where she'd go. He was worried about where she'd go, too. Now she could wield weapons...he had to warn the others. He had to warn them to stay away from her somehow.

But warning the others could come later, because now they were home and there were important things that needed to be said. Neither of them had survived this latest alien encounter unscathed.

"Can we talk now?" Charlie said it, but he didn't know what to do. Did he sit down? He didn't feel like it now, and even the rooms of the house felt claustrophobic.

"We can talk now." Matteusz shut the front door behind them and pulled Charlie into his arms, and Charlie welcomed it. Everything else was falling to pieces, but he still had Matteusz. He still had Matteusz.

"I'm sorry if I worried you," he said, though really that was the least of everything on his mind. Matteusz was afraid of him, he'd admitted how he felt around the group, and he'd...he'd told them about his crime.

"You worried me a lot," Matteusz said firmly. "I do not need a stone to tell you that truth." He sighed. "When you said that sometimes you hated me because I hold you back...it hurt."

"It's true," he said. "You are the only thing that holds me back. I want to kill them all, but I think I value you more than my revenge. It's hard to go against everything I want for the sake of one person and sometimes I...at home I was meant to be above emotion. Above weaknesses that could keep me from performing my duty. You make me everything I shouldn't be."

"But you love me," Matteusz said quietly, and there was an urgency in his voice that made Charlie's heart clench. He nodded firmly, because he did. There was no one he'd ever loved more than Matteusz, and he didn't care how imperfect that made him.

"I love you," he said. "I love you, Matteusz. I hate myself more than you for this happening. That's the truth." As much as Matteusz and his beautiful eyes and his smile and his endlessly cheerful nature were at fault, nobody was more to blame for his weakness than himself.

"Do not hate yourself." Charlie found himself being hugged even tighter, felt Matteusz's face pressed against his shoulder. "You...you do scare me, but you also make me happier than I have ever been. You're everything I could ever ask for."

"I'm not human enough for you, I understand," he said. He was perfectly aware that his friends were seen as weird specifically for hanging out with him. He didn't know anything, he found it difficult to learn all the humans things, and above all his values were so different to the human values.

"No, no..." A shake of the head, Matteusz's hair tickling his shoulder. "Charlie, I do not need you to be human. I fell in love with you, and anything else...it would not be the same. I fear how strong you are, how easily you could destroy me, but...I also trust that you would never do such a thing. That is the part that matters."

"I would never," he said, and he never would. He cared for Matteusz too much for that. "I could not even bring myself to do something you would hate. I wouldn't want to. When you're here, I don't want to kill the Shadowkin."

"Thank you." Matteusz pulled away, one hand cupping the side of Charlie's face and pulling him into a gentle kiss. "Is there anything else that needs talking about?"

"You knew what I felt before," he said quietly. He hadn't thought about it at the time; he'd been too busy being convinced he was dying. But now all of the worry for Matteusz was right there. "How?"

"When you panicked?" Charlie nodded, and Matteusz sighed. "When I was younger...I used to panic a lot. It was the first time I had a boyfriend, and my parents found out...they were not happy."

"So it was a real fear," he said. His fear was nothing. It had felt real at the time, but now he realised that he'd spent loads of time in spaces that small.

"It was, at the time...but so was yours." Another tight hug, and Charlie felt just a little better. "You were trapped somewhere confined, was just as scary as facing my parents was for me."

"It isn't," Charlie sighed. "I don't feel like that when I'm in lessons, and really I'm just as trapped then."

"You can leave a classroom," Matteusz pointed out. "Leaving a space prison is a lot harder." He was right, Charlie supposed. In class, he had the option to walk out if he really wanted to. Today, there had been none of that choice.

"I love you," he said, pulling himself closer into Matteusz's arms. After everything, he still felt safe there. In his arms was probably the safest he ever felt and he never wanted to lose that. "I'm sorry about some of the things I said today. I believed them, they were the truth, but it wasn't all of the truth."


End file.
